Diffusion Generative Modeling for Spatially Resolved Gene Expression Inference from Histology Images

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Zhu, Sichen, Zhu, Yuchen, Tao, Molei, Qiu, Peng
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Zhu, Sichen
Zhu, Yuchen
Tao, Molei
Qiu, Peng
author_facet Zhu, Sichen
Zhu, Yuchen
Tao, Molei
Qiu, Peng
contents Spatial Transcriptomics (ST) allows a high-resolution measurement of RNA sequence abundance by systematically connecting cell morphology depicted in Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) stained histology images to spatially resolved gene expressions. ST is a time-consuming, expensive yet powerful experimental technique that provides new opportunities to understand cancer mechanisms at a fine-grained molecular level, which is critical for uncovering new approaches for disease diagnosis and treatments. Here, we present $\textbf{Stem}$ ($\textbf{S}$pa$\textbf{T}$ially resolved gene $\textbf{E}$xpression inference with diffusion $\textbf{M}$odel), a novel computational tool that leverages a conditional diffusion generative model to enable in silico gene expression inference from H&E stained images. Through better capturing the inherent stochasticity and heterogeneity in ST data, $\textbf{Stem}$ achieves state-of-the-art performance on spatial gene expression prediction and generates biologically meaningful gene profiles for new H&E stained images at test time. We evaluate the proposed algorithm on datasets with various tissue sources and sequencing platforms, where it demonstrates clear improvement over existing approaches. $\textbf{Stem}$ generates high-fidelity gene expression predictions that share similar gene variation levels as ground truth data, suggesting that our method preserves the underlying biological heterogeneity. Our proposed pipeline opens up the possibility of analyzing existing, easily accessible H&E stained histology images from a genomics point of view without physically performing gene expression profiling and empowers potential biological discovery from H&E stained histology images.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_15598
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Diffusion Generative Modeling for Spatially Resolved Gene Expression Inference from Histology Images
Zhu, Sichen
Zhu, Yuchen
Tao, Molei
Qiu, Peng
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Quantitative Methods
Spatial Transcriptomics (ST) allows a high-resolution measurement of RNA sequence abundance by systematically connecting cell morphology depicted in Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) stained histology images to spatially resolved gene expressions. ST is a time-consuming, expensive yet powerful experimental technique that provides new opportunities to understand cancer mechanisms at a fine-grained molecular level, which is critical for uncovering new approaches for disease diagnosis and treatments. Here, we present $\textbf{Stem}$ ($\textbf{S}$pa$\textbf{T}$ially resolved gene $\textbf{E}$xpression inference with diffusion $\textbf{M}$odel), a novel computational tool that leverages a conditional diffusion generative model to enable in silico gene expression inference from H&E stained images. Through better capturing the inherent stochasticity and heterogeneity in ST data, $\textbf{Stem}$ achieves state-of-the-art performance on spatial gene expression prediction and generates biologically meaningful gene profiles for new H&E stained images at test time. We evaluate the proposed algorithm on datasets with various tissue sources and sequencing platforms, where it demonstrates clear improvement over existing approaches. $\textbf{Stem}$ generates high-fidelity gene expression predictions that share similar gene variation levels as ground truth data, suggesting that our method preserves the underlying biological heterogeneity. Our proposed pipeline opens up the possibility of analyzing existing, easily accessible H&E stained histology images from a genomics point of view without physically performing gene expression profiling and empowers potential biological discovery from H&E stained histology images.
title Diffusion Generative Modeling for Spatially Resolved Gene Expression Inference from Histology Images
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Quantitative Methods
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.15598